RIYADH: Book and literature aficionados as well as football fans will converge at the Riyadh International Book Fair, which will be opened by the Culture and Information Minister Abdul Aziz Khoja on behalf of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah today.
This year’s book fair has Brazil as guest of honor. “We can’t talk about Brazilian literature and art without mentioning their popular sport, football,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Subail, undersecretary at the ministry for cultural affairs.
Brazil will contribute a set of popular titles to the book exhibition, while also participating in the cultural activities that will be held on the sidelines of the event.
The Brazilians are also involved in the seminars with papers and discussions on: “Brazilian Culture”, “Brazilian Literature”, “Brazil and the West” and “Brazil and the Arab World.”
Sports fans and supporters of Brazil will especially enjoy the seminar entitled “The History of Brazilian Sport” by Ricardo Cruz and “Sport in Brazil” by Florsai Kosta Berra, that will take place tomorrow and Thursday at 8.00 p.m.
In addition to these featured events, the cultural tent will provide many appealing literary topics. Local and international speakers will lecture from 6.00 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. daily.
Personal experiences in poetry, writing, and publishing will be highlighted during the fair, and local speakers too will be speaking about their experiences in different countries. In addition to the youth and book culture, women and writing, intellectual rights are some of the other cultural titles.
Ahmad Hejazi from Egypt, Moammad Jabri from Morocco, Abdo Khal and Hatoon Al-Fasi from Saudi Arabia are just a few of the names who will be featured here. International lecturers from US, France and UK will also speak. All the works of Tayib Saleh, an Arab literary icon who died recently, will be highlighted in a night dedicated to him, “The Journey of Creativeness.”
Arab historians who contributed to the development of Arabia by writing about the Arabian Peninsula before 1400H will be honored at the fair.
For the first time, the visiting hours will be from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. for all, including the cultural tent and the exhibition area. However, some evening shows will be exclusively for men.
The exhibition, also for the first time, will provide a place for used books with many famous shops in this field setting up tents. Computers will be made available for visitors to help in their on-the-spot searches.
About 650 foreign, mostly Arabic-language, publishing houses from 27 countries will attend the fair. Some 250,000 titles, mostly religious, social commentary, textbooks, humanities and works of fiction, will be featured. There will also be some titles on economics, but none addressing politics. There will be a special section for children’s literature as well as activities and reading corners.
The fair will be at the newly built exhibition center in King Abdullah Road, near the Prince Salman Social Center. It will run until March 13. The organizers are expecting many visitors this year, especially since the book fair is at the same time as the Janadriyah festival.
